Weight: 212 lbs Diameter: 18" Bell 1 of 1
Founded by Thomas Newman 1706
Dove Bell ID: 63600 Tower ID: 25381 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Norwich: St Michael at Plea
Overview
Grid reference: TG 232 87
The west tower of the church is the first part to be seen from the street and it presents a stumpy aspect because it has been lowered at some time in the 19th century. The walls of the tower, as of the rest of the church are faced with flints.
Visiting and facilities
Building is closed for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
The church consists of a west tower, five-bay nave, two-bay chancel with transepts and a chapel on the south side of the chancel linked to the chancel and south transept by arches. The south porch has a parvise.
Description of Archaeology and History
No certain date is known for any part of this church.
Exterior Description
The west tower of the church is the first part to be seen from the street and it presents a stumpy aspect because it has been lowered at some time in the 19th century. As a result, it now has no bell-openings and has acquired four disproportionately large pinnacles. In the place of any opening is the clock face, with the date 1827 and the legend 'Forget me not'. The walls of the tower, as of the rest of the church are faced with flints.
The porch on the south side of the church leads into the foot of the tower. The south front of the porch is an attractive composition, the centrally placed doorway having figures of St. Michael and the Dragon Satan in the spandrels. On each side of the doorway are niches for statues with attractive crocketted canopies and shields set in quatrefoils beneath.
The band of flint flushworh between the ground floor and first floor represents crowned black-letter 'M's. In the front of the parvise, three recesses are connected by a continuous square dripstone running above them. The central one, formerly containing a sundial, is now a niche with a nineteenth-century statue of St. Michael. This unnecessarily duplicates the theme of the spandrelsbelow. The other two openings here are windows for the room within. They are square-headed with ogee tracery and small mouchettes in the corners of the head of each light. Like most of the windows in the church they are olaved with quarries. The parapet above is plain except for an indistinguishable carved stone in the centre and stumps not worthy of being called pinnacles at the top of the corner buttresses. The side walls of the porch have open traceried windows. Each is of two main lights with tracery very similar to that at St. Peter, Hungate, nearby, employing an ogee pattern and mouchettes.
The nave of the church is very plain, with four windows in each wall and a simple buttress between each. The roofs are all leaded. The tracery of these windows is more Decorated than Perpendicalar although like those at St. Peter Hungate, traces of both persuasions can be discerned. These windows are of three lights, each having a cinquefoil head, and above the tracery follows a common pattern of mouchettes and daggers. The windows of the chancel and transepts although a slightly different pattern follow the same tracery design, which would seem to point to the fact that the church was all built at roughly the same time.
The north transept has a base frieze of shields as has the north aisle. Whether this indicates that the north side of the church is of a slightly different date or that the base frieze does exist on the south but is concealed by higher ground level is uncertain. The other details of the architecture seem much the same as the other darts of the church.
Building Fabric and Features
Stained Glass
c. Late 15th Century
The heads of the three main lights and the tracery lights are filled with fifteenth century glass. The heads of the three main lights are filled with a jumble of glass - some pieces of canopies, a roundel painted with the lion of St. Mark evidently part of a set of the Evangelists, part of a small scene of an Entombment, fragments of angels and a shield of arms of Parker. All the glass in the window except this shield is datable to c1460-80. The shield seems to be some time seen after 1572 when the arms were granted to Parker of Lambeth.
Interior
Interior Description
Facing the door in the nave of the church is the octagonal font with its notable cover. On the left, a tall arch opens into the tower. The door to the tower stair is to the right under this arch and leads to a bridge gallery at first floor level made in 1887 out of some of the old fittings of the church (the balustrade is part of the altar rails, some of which still remain in their place in the sanctuary). At the same time the room over the porch to which this gallery leads was panelled with the wood from the box pews which were removed from the nave. An interesting and attractive detail is the cendle-sconce on the gallery, consisting of a long stem of wrought iron twisted into a corkscrew for a short section halfway up and terminating in an elegant clasp for the candlellike a stylized lily flower. Beside this is a slender S shaped rod of metal forming the handrail for the three steps leading up from the gallery into the parvice.
Down the central alley of the nave are several fine lodger slabs of marble. There are more in the area of floor just in front of the chancel screen. The total number is about thirty. Near the font is a most curious monument in two sections on walls which meet at an obtuse angle. The roof of the nave is an arch-braced construction with embattled bratishing along the wall plate and curious longitudinal arch-braces on the walls between the wall-posts. At the apex of the roof are winged angels.
The south transept has recently been used as a vestry. There are one or two monuments on the walls. The north transept formerly contained the monument of the Ferrer family, but in the 1887 rehabilitation of the church, the stonework of this was re-used to make a pulpit.
Like the nave of the church, the chancel is well lit by large windows with quarries of clear glass, the only stained glass being a few mediaeval fragments in the tracery at the hood of the east window.
Fixtures and fittings
Altar
The Alter is of a familiar type for its date with big squat Tuscan pillars and sturdy stretchers, but unusually large and with an inscription which reads 'The Gift of Mr. Thomas Anguish, 1624. Mercer'; a modern top has been affixed.
Rail
c. 18th - 19th Century
The Communion Rails are a row of tall classical balusters with a moulded top-rail. They are probably eighteenth century but might be nineteenth century.
Chair
c. 19th Century
A throne-like carved wooden chair, presumably a Bishop's Chair and 19th century.
Bench Pew
c. 18th Century
Font (component)
17th Century
The font-cover and canopy, 17th century. This is a steeple cover, related to others in Norwich of the same approximate date and character, but it must surely be one of the most spectacular surviving. From the rim of the cover rise four Tuscan columns to support the canopy, while from the centre of the cover rises one of the skeletal obelisks or steeples which give this group of font covers their identity. Above the canopy, the central post is first square and fashioned like the belfry stage of a tower, and then round, while from the edge of the canopy to the top of this column there are bold curving struts which form an openwork pointed cupola, the most attractive and unusual feature of this very strange construction, uncommonly Baroque in conception. Then there is a further stage consisting of a fronded capital and then a section of entablature (like the capitals used by Gibbs at St. Martins in the Fields) and on top of that another steeple with a ball finial. Crowning the whole is a dove, uncomfortably large for the ball and steeple imnediately beneath.
Pulpit
1888
The pulpit was constructedin 1888 with materials from the Ferrer family tomb which stood formerly in the north transept.
Font (object)
The font is octagonal, a Perpendicular design with traceried pairs of panels on each face, and angels' heads forming the transition from stem to bowl.
Panel
Moses and Aaron are painted on wooden panels which hang each side of,the tower arch on the west wall of the nave. They probably come from an eighteenth century reredos which was removed when the painted mediaeval panels (now in the Cathedral) were reinstated as an altarpiece.
Screen
1907
The Screen, 1907, is a flamboyant lace-like structure with a Rood and attendant figures above.
Bells
Churchyard
Grid reference: TG 232 87
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
National Heritage record for England designations
There are no records of National Heritage assets within the curtilage of this site.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | N/A |
| Solar Thermal Panels | N/A |
| Biomass | N/A |
| Wind Turbine | N/A |
| Air Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ev Charging | N/A |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
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